
“Always Shine” screens at 10:30 p.m. Friday night at the Union South Marquee Theatre, 1208 W. Dayton St. as part of the Directress Film Festival. FREE.
And you thought Emma Stone’s auditions in “La La Land” were rough. In the opening scene of Sophie Takal’s “Always Shine,” an actress named Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) is auditioning for a sexually humiliating part in a lousy horror movie, sobbing as she offers an unseen killer her body in exchange for sparing her life. We hear the producers leering off-camera as she debases herself, chortling as she all but strips in front of them to get the part.
Then we see what’s shot like another audition, this time an actress named Anna (Mackenzie Davis) seeming to audition for the part of a pissed-off customer at an auto repair shop. Only, when the scene ends, we realize that she’s not auditioning for role — she really is at an auto shop, really is pissed off.
The pairing of those two scenes is key. “Always Shine” comes off in many ways like a brutal commentary on Hollywood sexism, on the way the industry uses and disposes of women. And that’s part of it. But, ultimately, “Always Shine” is about the way society in general looks at women, how they are often forced to perform roles for men in certain ways — to play submissive, or flirty, or the “cool girl” — in order to be seen and heard.
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